


Severed

by primalrage



Category: Overwatch (Video Game)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Soulmates, Angst, Loss of Limbs, M/M, Sad, Soulmate-Identifying Marks, Soulmates, i hate this trope but here we go anyway, im sorry if this hurts you like it hurt me
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-08-17
Updated: 2018-08-17
Packaged: 2019-06-28 16:00:07
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,001
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15710529
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/primalrage/pseuds/primalrage
Summary: Everyone in the world can communicate with their soulmates by writing on their non-dominant arm; the words or pictures inked on their flesh will appear on the dominant arm of their fated partner. Genji has struggled his whole life with his soulmate - first because of their silence, and then because when they finally made themselves known a language barrier prevented them from properly conversing. After his fight with Hanzo leaves Genji a cyborg missing his limb, the lost connection fills Genji with a grief he must carry on his shoulders for the rest of his life... Unless somehow he and his soulmate can find each other without the help of this magic.





	Severed

**Author's Note:**

> I wrote this in a single day. Or really, I sat down and pumped this out in maybe like 3 uninterrupted hours. I don't think I've ever just written anything so effortlessly before, but I really wanted to write something sad. Obviously it hasn't been super edited or anything so ahhhh I hope there's nothing hella wrong with it. I honestly thought about making this some crazy porn, too, but I decided to end with something a lil more pure.
> 
> Just needed a break from the ten zillion McHanzo fics I've been writing. Although this one, in my head, also has McHanzo in it, but you're welcome to interpret Hanzo's soulmate however you want. (I personally imagine that their story in this AU also ended in tragedy after McCree lost his arm, which would have similarly made it impossible for him to write messages. But maybe they met up beforehand)
> 
> I'm normally not a fan of the soulmate trope, whoops ~

It is a frigid night in Nepal, the beginning of monsoon season, and a terrific storm rages against the peaks of the Himalayas. The Shambali Monastery is blanketed with deep snow drifts, and fresh powder is being dumped from the dark sky in sheets too thick to see through. Everyone hides in their shelters, wrapped in coats and blankets, listening to the howls of the wind that have children cowering in their beds and fretting about the yeti. Even Zenyatta is cold. As an Omnic, he lacks human flesh, but the sensors built into his surface are capable of feeling the temperature. He has chosen to wait this storm out in the room of his favorite student, Genji. 

Genji has been taking lessons exceptionally well lately. Zenyatta is proud of the progress he has made. When Genji first arrived at the monastery, his heart was the darkest that Zenyatta had ever known. He did not know what past traumas had left this young man so wounded and bitter, but whatever the reason, Genji had needed spiritual help badly.  Zenyatta had spent countless hours patiently peeling back layers of hurt and anger, and finally his student's core had been exposed - afraid, weak, and eager for tutelage. It had been, in Zenyatta's opinion, an absolute emergency. The young man who sits before him now, wrapped in a wool blanket and sharpening his blade by candlelight, is hardly the same that arrived those months before. He makes pleasant conversation with Zenyatta, smiling or occasionally laughing at jokes. It is lovely to be in his company.

But there is still a weight on the young man's shoulders, something that Zenyatta has yet to discover the source of and cannot figure out how to help him shed. Initially, Zenyatta assumed that Genji was still carrying a sense of great betrayal. Zenyatta knew all the details of Genji's fight with his brother, Hanzo, that had resulted in the loss of most of his human body and the need for cybernetic parts. If it hadn't been for the group called Overwatch, with all the technology of the world at their disposal, Genji would have surely died from his injuries. But recently, Genji has put a framed photograph of himself and Hanzo on the dresser in his room. It seems that he has, as much as he can, forgiven his brother. It is something else that still troubles him, something deeper and more secretive. Tonight, trapped in each other's presence for the foreseeable future, Zenyatta finally decides to ask him outright what continues to bother him.

Genji looks up from the sword in his lap. For a moment, he is silent, staring at Zenyatta with a fire burning in his eyes, but then suddenly he is weeping. There are thick tears streaming down his heavily scarred cheeks, and his shoulders tremble as he raises his right arm, which is a prosthetic from shoulder to fingertips. As hurt as Genji had been when he first arrived, Zenyatta has never seen him cry before. 

"I just want to speak to my soulmate again," Genji says. 

The words pierce Zenyatta's heart, more terrible than the storm outside. He knows this is one thing he cannot help his student with. 

 

* * *

 

Genji remembers watching his childhood friends and classmates begin to communicate with their soulmates, but his own skin remained clear without so much as a single accidental smudge. 

In fact, he had learned about the phenomenon rather late in life, when he was nine years old and the boy whose desk was next to his had been called to stand up and read aloud from their history textbook. The boy's right arm had been at eye-level for Genji, and if Genji had been paying more attention to the lesson, he might not have ever noticed it. A blue line had begun to appear, like magic, across the outside of his wrist. Genji had watched, fascinated, as more lines emerged, forming delicately handwritten characters. The characters, in katakana, had come together to spell out a single word - "sandwich." He had stared so openly, so in awe, that when the boy finished his paragraph and dropped back into his seat, he was blushing and flustered. "I asked my soulmate what she brought for lunch today," he had explained. 

Genji had not understood, and so after dinner that night, he had gone to his older brother Hanzo for clarification. Hanzo had proudly pulled up his sleeve, revealing doodles that sprawled up and down his right arm. None of them had been drawn particularly well. A horse. A pair of stick figures holding a bunch of balloons. A square house with a triangle roof and a yard of flowers. A creature that might have been a dragon or a bumblebee. What Genji remembers most clearly was the heart with an arrow drawn through it, right on Hanzo's wrist. 

"My soulmate cannot speak Japanese," Hanzo told him, "So we draw pictures. I want to keep studying English, so that I can meet him some day."

"Your soulmate is a boy?" Genji had teased him. His face going red with a mixture of rage and embarrassment, Hanzo had pushed Genji out of his room, slamming the sliding door closed in his face. 

It had amazed Genji that this very significant aspect of life had been unknown to him up until that point. Their parents had sent them to the best school, had hired the best instructors in archery and martial arts, had forced them to practice shamisen until Genji's fingers hurt from plucking strings. Somehow, though, they had forgotten to teach Genji about his soulmate. 

After he was sure his family had gone to bed, Genji had dug a flashlight out of his toy chest. By its dim light, he had taken his box of markers and stayed up half the night attempting communication with his soulmate. Just beneath his elbow, he had drawn a circle inside of a rectangle - the Japanese flag, to let the other person know about his ethnicity. He drew a green dragon that sprawled across his whole forearm ( _better than Hanzo's stupid soulmate had drawn_ , he had thought to himself) and a sword like the one his father carried, and a robot with a laser beam, and a tree covered in cherry blossom flowers like the one in the courtyard, and koi fish like the ones he fed every morning in his mother's pond. He drew until he found himself nodding off, his eyes unable to stay open, and only then did he turn off the flashlight and fall asleep, with his arm held out to the side as if it was a precious treasure. There was no way that his soulmate could ignore him, with the rainbow of ink he had sent!

The next day had passed without a response, and the day after that. On the third day, after refusing to bathe so that the drawings wouldn't wash off, his father had finally picked him up and carried him, kicking and screaming, to the tub. 

Everyone had a soulmate. At lunch time, his classmates would all giggle and coo over each other's arms. It became a game to see whose soulmate would respond to messages the fastest. On the train ride home, he was aware of people checking the messages on their skin. He would peer over their shoulders and see things like "pick up some eggs on your way home" or "don't forget your appointment tomorrow morning" or just a simple "I love you." The babysitter his father had hired to keep an eye on him and Hanzo whenever he had late business to attend to wouldn't go anywhere without a pen tucked into her braid, so that when her soulmate responded, she could respond instantly. Genji felt like he was the only person in the world who was alone. 

As he grew older, and his tests were repeatedly failed, Genji began to lose hope. Keeping his shameful secret and pretending that he wasn't devastated became increasingly more difficult. When he was eleven, his literature class was instructed to write a haiku that they would then send to their soulmates on their arms. Genji had refused to turn anything in and had just taken the zero for his grade. When he was fourteen, he started to become interested in girls his age, but whenever he asked one out, she never seemed interested. They would go to the arcade or to a movie together, and each time he got the same clarification - "I'm only going out with you until I can meet my soulmate." With each passing day, he felt more and more left out, and more and more disheartened. 

Genji's father eventually noticed. How could he not? The older Hanzo got, the more obsessed he had become with the messages on his arm. Hanzo's soulmate seemed to respond immediately, no matter the time of day, and Hanzo had since become nearly fluent in English, so they would have whole entire conversations in the language. The distance between the brothers had grown, until Genji could hardly stand to be in the room with Hanzo. So the Shimada patriarch had called Genji into his office one evening and had asked, bluntly, if Genji was bonding with his soulmate. Genji remembers it as one of the most embarrassing moments of his life. 

"I have no soulmate!" he had sobbed, and the tears came hot and fast. He had been a teenager then, too old to cry like that to his father, and so his father had understood how alienated he felt. Genji had considered himself an outcast. A freak. And Hanzo's perfect, sunny relationship with his soulmate only made things worse. 

"Come here, my little Sparrow," his father had said, opening his arms to embrace his son. Genji had wept into his chest like a child. "No need to cry. You're still so young. Perhaps your soulmate hasn't been born yet, or has yet to learn to read and write. An age gap like that isn't unheard of. And some cultures and religions will refuse to write to their soulmate until they are a bit older. Just give it some time."

It had been impossible to find any comfort in his father's words. Eventually, Genji had given up hope.

 

* * *

 

 

Zenyatta allows Genji to cry. It is an innocent pain, one born out of hope and longing, instead being born from the negative emotions that Genji had carried with him when he had first arrived at the monastery. Zenyatta recognizes that sometimes, tears themselves can bring healing. So he says nothing, just moves in closer to his student, and spreads open his arms to offer him his shoulder to cry on. Genji sheds his blanket and launches himself into Zenyatta's embrace, their metal bodies touching with a quiet clang over the wail of the storm. 

"I forgave my brother," Genji says, "I learned to accept my new body. But no matter how much time passes, I cannot stop missing my soulmate. I think about him out there, somewhere, wondering why I have stopped responding. Does he think I'm dead? Does he think I stopped loving him?"

He has never voiced that fear aloud, and finally speaking it has made it feel so real. The love of his life, his fated partner, his other half must believe that for some reason he had fallen out of love with him. 

"After Dr. Ziegler had saved my life," Genji tells Zenyatta, the first time he has ever told anyone, "for months, I watched as messages from him were written on my good arm. He was trying to communicate with me, trying to understand why I had stopped writing to him. But without my right arm to write on, I was never able to respond. I had to watch him lose hope. I witnessed his heart breaking, and there was nothing that I could do to stop it." 

He holds out his left arm, the one that, underneath his layers of clothing, is still flesh and blood. He rolls the sleeves up, revealing his pale, unblemished skin. He caresses his forearm with his fingertips while his tears drip from his chin onto Zenyatta's chest. 

"I tried so hard to write to him. I carved words into my arm so deeply that Torbjorn had to build me a new one. I even tried to switch arms, to write on the one that I still had. But none of the messages I wrote were reaching him. I don't need the link between us back. I just want to get one single message through to him. That I love him. That I never stopped loving him, and never will. I don't want him to ever feel alone, or not good enough."

Zenyatta raises a hand to smooth Genji's dark hair. In their months together, Genji has never broken down like this over anything. It hurts him to see his student so distraught. "That is not how he feels, Genji," he says, trying to calm him, "Soulmates do not simply fall out of love with one another. He realizes that something has happened which has severed your connection. Humans are so fragile. Instead, Genji, he is happy to have ever known you. The love that both of you shared, no matter how fleeting, was something that made him feel whole and at peace. It may take time for him to heal, but he will carry your messages with him always. You both were lucky to have had each other."

Genji is sobbing now. He has never wept so openly, even though he has suffered these feelings ever since the fight with Hanzo that claimed his right arm. Having someone to confide his fears in does not help. Instead, he feels like a dam inside of him has broken, and every sorrow he has held at bay is leaking through, drowning him. "How can you say that, Master? How can you be so optimistic?" 

It takes Zenyatta a moment to answer. They sit holding each other, and the room is silent but for Genji's sobs, the whir of their mechanical bodies, and the bellow of the snowstorm outside. When he speaks up, his words steal Genji's breath away: "I lost my soulmate, too."

 

* * *

 

 

Genji had not been the only person without a soulmate, he had come to realize. As a teenager, he had started to hang out with those others, and among each other they had all found someplace to fit in. They were a group of rebels - throwing parties, doing drugs bought with Genji's father's money, having copious amounts of unprotected sex. All of them were halves of one whole soul, and it felt like these acts of heresy was to compensate for not being complete. The best part to Genji was that these girls were easy to woo. Dating them, fucking them, and breaking their hearts helped him forget his loneliness. His family watched, helpless, as he turned his back on them.

He remembers the night that everything changed with absolute clarity. Or rather, he remembers the next morning. The night of, he had been so inebriated that he could barely form sentences, and the actual events remain cloudy in his memory. His group had been at a party at one of their number's houses. A new girl had been there, hanging out with them for the first time. Genji remembers her being lovely, with long legs and wide eyes, but the accuracy of this recollection is questionable. When he had sat down beside her, casually placing his hand on her thigh, she had smiled at him with a look of sobering sadness, and confessed that her soulmate had stopped answering her when she had been eleven years old. 

"Can I have your number?" Genji asked, unmoved at the time by her story. 

They couldn't find a pen, so she had pulled a tube of lipstick from her purse and had written the digits on his right forearm. 

The rest of the night is a blur in his mind. He thinks they might have made out until the party ended. It all ended up being irrelevant. He went home and had passed out on his futon. It wasn't until the next morning, when he was changing out of his beer-drenched clothes, that he happened to notice the question mark written in black ink on his left hand. 

Any plans for the day forgotten, Genji had scrambled for a pen and had dropped, still naked, onto the floor to test if his soulmate was really out there.

_Hello?_

_Are you there?_

_I've waited my whole life to meet you._

_My name is Genji. I'm 17 years old. I live in Japan._

For years at that point, Genji's philosophy had been that the entire concept of soulmates was idiotic and designed to make people feel left out. He had scoffed at Hanzo for writing entire love letters on his arm. He had withdrawn from childhood friends as their relationship with some seemingly imaginary person had grown deeper over time. But in that moment, as he sat there, Genji had been filled with breathless hope. He wanted to have this. He would have given anything in the world for that question mark to be the real thing. 

The response came in a language of strange lines and swirls. It was nothing he could recognize, let alone read. But that didn't matter. He had a soulmate. Finally, after a lifetime of waiting and waiting. Genji remembers that feeling of elation, no feeling before or after had ever come close. 

Crying quietly, alone in his bedroom, Genji had taken the pen in hand and drawn, on his right forearm, a heart. 

The response was a smiling face. 

There really had been a person out there for him! It took mere seconds for him to understand why everyone was so focused on this miracle. Being connected to someone was the most beautiful feeling in the world. His heart was so full that it felt like it would explode through his ribcage. He didn't know his soulmate's name, or gender, or even what language they spoke, but his love for the person was the most intense, breathtaking sensation. He drew a hundred hearts, covering his arm from fingertip to elbow.

Because of the language barrier, like Hanzo, Genji had to write to his soulmate using pictures. Even though that prevented them from really getting to know each other, Genji was so blissfully happy that it never even occurred to him to be disappointed about this. He knew that his soulmate was a boy like him, but that was the extent of what he knew. Ashamed that he had harassed Hanzo about having a male soulmate, Genji decided to keep the discovery of his own soulmate to himself. And he certainly couldn't tell any of his new friends, all of whom were without soulmates of their own. None of them would understand. 

It took no time at all for a routine to develop. In the morning, on the way to school, Genji usually got an hour or so of conversation before his soulmate would disappear for a big chunk of the day. When he got out of school, usually sometime after dinner, his soulmate would return for the rest of the night. Genji knew there was likely a time difference, and he assumed that his soulmate had school or work, so he was patient. Waiting a few hours for the next symbol was nothing after he had waited his whole life. 

Genji was supposed to be studying for his college entrance exams, but whenever he went to the school library for those first few months, he instead flipped through language textbooks, trying hard to find the one that his soulmate spoke. It didn't look like any Asian language he knew, but maybe it was Arabic? Cyrillic? His inability to interpret his soulmate's writing system drove him crazy, especially as Hanzo's English improved and he was increasingly able to communicate with his own soulmate, but as months turned to years, the language barrier was less of an issue. His soulmate could use drawings to communicate with him - cheering him when he felt down, celebrating his victories in life, encouraging him when he doubted himself. His soulmate was such a positive figure in his life. He never imagined, even in his wildest nightmares, that anything might put an end to his happiness...

 

* * *

 

 

"An Omnic can have a soulmate?" Genji asks him, and for a moment his surprise draws the sadness from his features. 

"Of course," Zenyatta says, "We commonly use that as an argument for our equality. If we can have soulmates, must not we also possess souls?"

"But you lost yours, Master?" 

Zenyatta nods. "I was newly built when he began to write to me. I could only write in Nepali. I do not think he could understand. He disappeared rather suddenly. I believe that he died. This is how I know, Genji, that your soulmate does not blame you. His pain, and mine, are shared."

With such a huge planet, Genji supposes that statistically it must be common for soulmates to speak different languages. For those who speak the same language as their soulmate, the magic of the connection must feel like a gift. For him and Zenyatta, he knows it is a curse instead. He recalls those days laying in the Overwatch med bay, still trying to learn how to use his new limbs. His soul mate had been sending him countless words and pictures that he was never able to respond to, but the most heartbreaking moment had been when, in a final act of desperation, his soulmate had spelled out in perfect written English - HELLO? Genji had wept. All this time, they had both spoken English. He could have asked for his name, where he lived, so many details could have been filled in. Yet he had only learned this when it was too late.

Genji is sad for Zenyatta, but he can tell by the pulse of the lights in his forehead and the hum inside his chestpiece that Zenyatta is not mourning. If he was ever heartbroken by his soulmate's disappearance, he has come to terms with it. "That is some comfort to me, I suppose. Thank you, Master." 

"I am glad," Zenyatta says.

Genji looks down at his arm again. The flesh is raised in goosebumps. "How did you write to your soulmate, Master? Since your arm is not made of skin."

"The same way you did, Genji," Zenyatta answers, "Although I was careful to use washable pens." Genji laughs as Zenyatta pulls away from him, moving towards the small desk where Genji has stacked his collection of books. Zenyatta opens the top drawer, taking Genji's quill out and dipping it in the nearly-frozen ink. "Here," he says, offering the pen and his arm to his student. 

Genji takes a deep breath. It is no small thing, to be allowed to write to someone else's soulmate. But he supposes if Zenyatta's soulmate stopped answering, there is no reason why he should refuse. He steadies Zenyatta's arm with his right, cybernetic arm and takes the quill in his left hand. For a second, he considers what to write before just drawing out a heart, the same kind he would have sent to his soulmate months and months ago. The ink goes easily on the Omnic's forearm, no different than his own. He smiles, pleased, and offers Zenyatta the quill back.

Zenyatta makes no move to take it from him. He has gone very still.

Genji notices it out of the corner of his eye. Thick, black strokes appearing on his own left forearm. He stares as the shape of the heart is recreated, a perfect duplicate of the one on Zenyatta's left arm. His lips draw back in a pained smile. Once again, his eyes fill with tears, as Zenyatta folds his arms around him. 

 


End file.
